Maple water, the sap from maple trees, has a very subtle sweetness and is said to be rich in minerals and vitamins. [DNAinfo/Janet Rausa Fuller]
LOGAN SQUARE — The path that led Francesco Aimone to commit what he calls "grand theft maple" in 2012 — harvesting the sap from a ring of maple trees in Bronzeville that weren't his — began at curling club practice.
His teammate, a fellow Canadian, told Aimone about a guy he knew in Quebec, the maple syrup capital of the world, who delivers mail by day and makes maple syrup by night.
Which got Aimone thinking: "There are a lot of maple trees here. ... I always thought it would be fun to make maple syrup like a ninja." And besides, he was between jobs.
Aimone zeroed in on eight trees in Bronzeville. He learned the process ("It's not very difficult. I just read the North American Maple Syrup Producers Manual") and memorized facts like this: To make one gallon of maple syrup, you need to boil down 46 gallons of sap, which the trees release every spring.
One night in his Chinatown apartment, surrounded by steamed-up windows and jumbo pickle buckets full of sap, his roommate asked for a taste.
"He's like, 'Wow, this is refreshing. Dude, you should totally bottle this and sell it to yuppies,'" Aimone recounted. "And I said, 'You're right.' "
It took a few more years of planning but Aimone finally went legit this spring, bottling his first 300-gallon batch of fresh, pasteurized sap — so-called maple water.
His M2O maple water is on the shelf at just one place right now, the Dill Pickle Food Co-Op in Logan Square, near where he now lives. It's $3.99 for a 12-ounce bottle.
In the category of seasonal, local, sustainable and so-obscure-it's-hip foodstuffs, maple water is the newest contender. Some have dubbed it the next coconut water.
The handful of producers making the faintly sweet beverage are concentrated in the Northeast. They tout its pure, hydrating, low-sugar, nutrient-rich qualities — it's basically groundwater that circulates within maple trees during winter's thaw, collecting minerals and vitamins on its way up.
Still, there's little evidence confirming just how good it is for you. One selling point of Vertical Water, a New York-based brand, is that maple water is high in manganese, which plays a role in bone formation and metabolism. But the mineral is hardly lacking in the American diet as it's in a wide range of foods from whole wheat bread to fruit, according to the American Dietetic Association.
Neither M2O nor Vertical Water, which Dill Pickle also stocks, are big sellers, according to Dana Norden, the co-op's perishables buyer. But Aimone's water is tagged as a local product, which she said helps.
"I think maple water is just not known, and neither container really lists health benefits like coconut water does," Norden said. "Also, I think people expect it to be super sweet, and it isn't."
Logan Square resident Francesco Aimone bottled his first batch of maple water in the spring. [DNAinfo/Janet Rausa Fuller]
As far as Aimone can tell, he's the only one making maple water in the Chicago area. (It should be noted that his burgeoning business is in addition to his current day job in public health administration.)
He shies away from marketing M2O as some sort of tonic or cure-all.
"Absolutely nothing added," reads the frosty white bottle.
"What I hear from people is that they just don't like drinking water," Aimone said. "So if you want something that's naturally a little bit sweet, this is a good option."
Aimone's secret, late-night, tree-tapping days are behind him. He now gets his sap from Funks Grove Pure Maple Sirup in Shirley, Illinois, a 150-mile drive from the city.
Processing and bottling is done at a FDA-licensed facility in the western suburbs run by a food scientist who's a family friend. Together, they recently submitted a grant proposal to the North American Maple Syrup Council for research on more efficient evaporation methods that Aimone said could cut the cost of maple syrup production in half.
Aimone also is working on other products for his AcerBev brand (Acer is the Latin genus name for the maple tree), including maple sugar and a maple mixer, which he has already tried out on his curling club buddies.
"We thought it was great with Canadian rye whiskey," he said.
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